Davidson-Franklin-Washington County TN Archives Biographies.....Rice, DeLong 1872 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com August 28, 2005, 5:01 am

Author: Will T. Hale

   DeLONG RICE. Recently Democratic nominee for the office of state treasurer,

DeLong Rice is a Tennessean whose career was a remarkable rise from an

environment of limited opportunities to a place among the most influential

citizens of the state. Mr. Rice has long been familiarly associated with the

Rice Lyceum Bureau, which for years controlled and directed most of the

high-class artistic talent in its engagements through the South. Mr. Rice was

born on the top of the Cumberland mountains, not far from the historic town of

Winchester, Tennessee, in 1872. His parents were David C. and Maria J.

(Crabtree) Rice. The father was a country squire of the old school, a man of

robust body and mind, an ex-Confederate soldier, and a loyal Democrat. The

mother possessed unusual intelligence and exquisite gentleness, and the

influence of her early training and the ambition which she instilled in her son

were to no small degree responsible for his rise in the world.



   The father's death occurred in 1898, but the mother is still living. DeLong

Rice was reared in middle Tennessee, amid the surroundings which are familiarly

associated with that country. He was a scholar in a little log school, and when

not in school had his hands on the plow or the hoe, or in the work of tilling

new fields. During one season he worked in an old fashioned brickyard, and then

for two years was fireman of the engine in his father's sawmill, and he himself

cut the fuel for the engine. He became thoroughly familiar with the business of

making lumber according to the somewhat crude fashion of that time, and he also

had an experience which gave him a thorough familiarity with the operation of

sorghum making, since he had charge of a sorghum mill for some time. This early

life was spent in the free open air of the mountain regions, and was helpful and

stimulating to mind and body, although the privileges and opportunities for

advancing into professional affairs were limited.



   When he was fifteen years old he began driving a mule team with wagon loads

of lumber and other supplies from the mill to the town of Winchester. In 1888,

after his arrival with his team and wagon at Winchester, he found a greater part

of the population of the country district gathered to the public square, and on

a flag-draped platform stood a speaker whose name has now for twenty-five years

been synonymous with eloquence and statesmanlike power. This was Bob Taylor,

since known as Gov. Bob Taylor, and former United States senator from Tennessee,

and one of the great men of the past epoch. The eloquence of this orator filled

the young man, who was seated on his load of lumber, and both as an inspiration

at the time, and in the consequences which followed in later years, this was one

of the most important events in the early career of Mr. Rice.



   At the age of seventeen, through arrangement made by his father, Mr. Rice

began the study of law in the office of John Simmons, one of the leading lawyers

at Winchester. A year later he entered the Winchester Normal College in order to

supplement the deficiencies in his early education, and while a student there

found time to master the art of shorthand. This latter accomplishment attracted

him to the field of business, and he soon afterwards accepted a place in

Chattanooga as a stenographer at $8.00 a week. The firm which employed him for

this work failed in three weeks, and the young man was left with a little money

and worse prospects in that city. Bob Taylor had just vacated the office of

governor, and had recently found a partnership for the practice of law at

Chattanooga. It occurred to young Rice that here would be an excellent place to

offer his services as stenographer. Though he had no friends to introduce, nor

any recommendations as to his ability, he recalled to the former governor how

three years before he had stood on the top of a pile of lumber in order to hear

him speak at the old town of Winchester, and in this way secured a favorable

hearing and began work the next day as a stenographer.



   In the fall of 1891, Bob Taylor decided to go upon the lecture platform, thus

beginning a career which made him notable among platform lecturers throughout

the United States. Mr. Rice went along with him as secretary, and the following

year was appointed general manager of his lecture tours. From that point on Mr.

Rice's career has been on the plane of substantial success and gratifying

achievements throughout. In 1893 he was appointed by President Cleveland as

secretary to the government town site board, with headquarters at Perry,

Oklahoma, and for some time he was busy in connection with multifarious duties

arising from the settlement and opening of new lands in the territory of

Oklahoma. When his office term expired, he again took the management of the

Taylor lecture tours, and it was in no small degree due to the energy and

enterprise which he employed in this business that Bob Taylor became in time the

highest priced professional lecturer in the United States. Mr. Rice in 1900

organized and put in operation the well known Rice Lyceum Bureau. In this

business he has been content to deal with only the best talent, and at the very

start engaged the services of some of the most noted and highest priced

entertainers in New York City and elsewhere. In many ways he revolutionized some

of the old Lyceum methods, and conducted the bureau in such, way as to make it a

great educational source throughout the South.



   In 1910 and again in 1912 Mr. Rice was the nominee of the Democratic party

for the office of state treasurer, having received that honor by gratifying

pluralities in the primary election.



   In 1897 Mr. Rice married Miss Mary Carr of Johnson City, Tennessee.





Additional Comments:
From:



A history of Tennessee and Tennesseans : the leaders and representative men in

commerce, industry and modern activities

by Will T. Hale

Chicago:  Lewis Pub. Co.,  1913

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